About the work
Opera seria in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to an older libretto by Apostolo Zeno, written some twenty years earlier for a different setting. Vivaldi's version was commissioned by the impresario Luca Casimiro degli Albizzi and first performed on 29 December 1728 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.
Plot
Atenaide, daughter of an Athenian philosopher, flees to Constantinople and becomes the wife of Emperor Teodosio. A Persian prince also lays claim to her, while the schemer Probo stirs further confusion, until every conflict is resolved in a general reconciliation.
Cultural significance
The premiere, attended by the travelling writer Montesquieu, met with little success among the Florentine public. Musically the work is nonetheless rich: Vivaldi newly set part of the arias himself, while others he adapted as parody from his own already successful operas "Farnace" and "Orlando furioso".